


made to be broken

by captainskellington



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Sad, pretty much a character study, so... spoilers. also you know how it ends.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 18:51:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9002386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainskellington/pseuds/captainskellington
Summary: Every operative in the Rebellion had their own personal set of rules. Unspoken boundaries they would not cross, different for every single person. An ethical code ingrained into the very fibre of their being.If they told you they didn't, they were lying.Cassian was no different.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Again: warning for spoilers. This is not a happy fic.

Every operative in the Rebellion had their own personal set of rules. Unspoken boundaries they would not cross, different for every single person. An ethical code ingrained into the very fibre of their being. 

If they told you they didn't, they were lying. 

Cassian was no different. 

His rules were necessary. Brutal, but efficient. He would have been called cold if he ever spelled them out to anyone, but everyone around him had enough demons of their own without helping him with his. 

***

At one point, he hoped his cardinal rule would “ _never leave a man behind_ ”. 

Too soon, he came to realise that sometimes rules could only be broken so many times before they weren't worth upholding any more. 

He would never put a man under his control in unnecessary danger. The problem was, there was very little about being involved with the Rebellion that didn't qualify as a necessary danger. Once you were in, you forfeited your life. Everyone knew what was at stake. Everyone went about their lives knowing one day this would kill them. 

Cassian knew it. But while it could still be avoided, he was more useful to everyone alive than he was dead. You had to know the value of your own life and sometimes it was necessary to know the value of others’ as less than your own. When you had to call a retreat, you had to call a retreat.

Everyone in the Rebellion was a hero, but nobody was allowed to play the hero. They lived the lives that nobody should have to live, so that someday they would be the lives that nobody _would_ have to live. 

That didn’t make it any easier to sleep at night, though.

***

One of the most common rules, if you asked around and actually got an answer, would be something along the lines of " _never let a contact fall into the hands of the Empire_ ". The “ _ alive _ ” didn't need to be tagged onto the end of the sentence. Not only would they inevitably leak information crucial to the Rebellion, they would do so under torture. Cassian would do what he had to do, for their sake as much as everyone else’s.

He didn't enjoy killing. He never would. The first time he landed a shot on a Stormtrooper, the millisecond of elation he initially experienced swiftly transformed into a revulsion and horror that had him vomiting the entire contents of his stomach into a bucket on the way back to base. 

Sometimes when he couldn't sleep he saw the faces of every creature he had ever killed. He wasn't sure whether it was better or worse that Stormtroopers were essentially faceless. It made killing them no easier, but it made counting kills impossible. He didn't like to think about it.

Contacts were always worse. Some had families to support, some just liked the feeling of power, some had lost everything to the Empire, and some even acted out of the goodness of their own hearts. 

But anyone could spook at any moment. Nobody was immune to the terror of the Empire, and more times than Cassian could bear to consider that led to a split second decision and a blaster to the back. 

He tried his best to make it clean, quick, painless. To reassure them. 

It did not make him feel any better. 

But it was the very least he could do. 

***

The next rule was crucial for Cassian. _Never mindlessly obey_. Have control over your own thoughts. 

That was, in his mind, what marked them apart from the Stormtroopers.

There was a galaxy’s worth of difference between mindlessly following orders, and taking careful consideration over whether or not the order was the right thing to do before resigning yourself to it by any means necessary. That was a very important distinction to him. 

It was lucky that the vast majority of orders Cassian received were ones he saw no reason to protest. He and his superiors were relatively similar in regards to their aspirations, motivations, and dedication to the cause. Once he got an order he could see no flaw or hidden agenda or inconsistencies in, he would brace himself and do what needed done, and deal with the consequences when they inevitably hit him like a hammerhead.

So, naturally, when Jyn completely derailed the carefully constructed mental profile Cassian had created for her father, it threw him. He reconsidered his orders, something he could only have done a handful of times in the past. 

The Death Star was already built. The worst had happened. Galen had kept his secrets this long. There was no logical reason to pull the trigger. 

So he didn't. 

In the end, it technically didn't make any difference. 

Jyn, certainly, would not allow him that. 

But to him, it was a galaxy's worth of difference. 

***

There was one last rule. One silly, sentimental rule. The one above all that he would never in a million years admit to anyone. He would go toe to toe with Darth Vader himself blindfolded before he told anyone this rule. 

And this was the rule he ultimately broke. 

He knew he was going to break it the moment Jyn entered a battle between the forces of Saw and the Stormtroopers to pull a little girl out of harm’s way, brazenly disinterested in the risk it posed to her own life. 

For all his talk of hope and all her talk of not caring, she was the one who saw every life as worth saving, not just a statistic or a tactical error. 

Somewhere along the way, he lost some of that in himself. It was in part a conscious effort, because so often Cassian found the only way to cope with the things he had to do was to resign himself to the deed and embrace a certain level of numbness, of unflinching determination. 

It never lasted past the deed itself. But it got the job done, even if he could no longer meet the eye of his own reflection. 

The reflection of the man who had sworn to himself he would never love anyone. 

Loss was hard enough to deal with when it wasn't family. Whenever anyone he knew went down, the pain was unbearable. He knew people who had lost their children, their spouses, their closest friends. It drove some of them to a point of no return, and that terrified Cassian. 

In the Rebellion, everyone was at risk. 

He watched Chirrut and Baze, and wondered how they managed knowing any moment might be their last together. It must be an agonising way to live. 

But they didn't let that stop them. Chirrut engaged an entire group of Stormtroopers with nothing but a staff and a whole lot of belief. Baze chastised him, but he did not stop him. They were there for each other every step of the way, and Cassian had never seen two people more cemented in their love, yet so willing to put their lives on the line. Even for people they didn't know. 

You needed to have a lot of courage to be in love and at war. 

Cassian was tired of being scared. 

Some rules were made to be broken. 

***

As he fell, his final bleary thought was that if this was it, at least his last action had been to protect Jyn, to protect the future of the Rebellion and everyone who ever lived long enough to see it. 

At least he had done something with his pain, with his life. 

At least the last thing he ever heard was Jyn calling his name. 

When he regained consciousness he was presented with a single predestined course of action masquerading as a choice. 

He was hurt. The blaster wound wasn't immediately fatal, but any exertion would hasten the damage and, to put it bluntly, his death. If he wanted to survive, his only option was to remain where he was until he could be extracted, assessed and healed by a medic. To complete any other course of action, he would have to climb. 

But he knew better. There was no extraction to be had. This was what he had given his life for when he was still a child. He was already living on borrowed time. K was gone. They hadn't had contact with the beach, Bodhi or Chirrut or Baze, but he knew better than to think no news was good news. He had known from the moment they left the transport that he would never see any of his men again. That very soon, the spluttered incredulity from the radio would once again be true. “There is no Rogue One.”

_ But there  _ **_was._ ** _ And that was what mattered.  _

All that was left to Cassian was to decide how he was going to die. 

Cassian saw no other option. The Rebellion needed him. 

Most important of all, Jyn needed him.

So he let the agony burn through him, and he climbed. 

***

He only caught a glimpse of something bright and terrifying reflected in her eyes before she pulled him in close. As if he hadn't already seen the approaching hellstorm. As if she could somehow protect him. 

He knew then that it didn't matter if she felt the same. She deserved to know she was loved. This courageous, abandoned woman who gave everything for a cause that wasn't hers to begin with. 

Every nerve and cell in his body jangled with alarm and pain and apprehension and fear, overwhelmingly fear. But he would do this last thing.

Not for the Rebellion. 

For himself. 

For Jyn. 

He took a breath. 

He opened his eyes. 

He

 

didn't 

 

make

 

it.

 

(But she knew.  
Oh, Cassian.  
She knew.)

**Author's Note:**

> This is such a weird thing to post on Christmas Eve?? Not exactly spreading the joy. Hope you enjoyed it to some extent nonetheless.  
> I didn't mark it for Major Character Death because it's more implied than explicit, but let me know if you think I should change that.  
> Tumblr account is [cityelf](http://cityelf.tumblr.com).  
> Come chat to me about my new all time favourite movie.


End file.
